Prerecorded sets were crap. The worst may have been Columbia and chrysalis. You didn’t even get to the point where you were discussing the sound because the tape would malfunction. We’ve heard mention of a few Decks from back in the day that would give you some good sound, those being Nak and Tandberg. My recollection is that TEAC made a couple that were pretty good. As young lads my friends and I were guilty of cranking up the levels and saturating the tape on occasion. Worrying about the sound came a few years later. A substantial number of early CD reissues supposedly suffered by being mastered from cassette masters which I don’t even want to think what generation they were. But that tells you how much care of the wrecker companies are putting into the cassettes, knowing that they wouldBe played in cheap car stereos for boomboxes
